Trysome Eatoneby Love Spit Love

Spare a thought for Richard Butler, the former frontman of Psychedelic Furs, who for all his huskily voiced entreaties never won the accolades and adulation afforded to his erstwhile contemporaries, Morrissey and Robert Smith. Lacking the formers force of personality and savage wit and the latters musical versatility, Butler was nevertheless the personification of elegant cool and a diligent craftsman capable of sculpting perfect pop songs. And even if he has found himself forever with his foot in the door of mainstream success but never able to push further, he has also never made a clunker of album. Even the Furs’ big bid for stardom, Midnight to Midnight, an album Butler deemed “vacuous", is not without its charms. Trysome Eatone, his second and final outing with Love Spit Love, saw Butler playing to his strengths but also stretching himself, luckily never too thin. He has certain limits as a lyricist, and given his age at the time of this album, he still sounds remarkably like a moody adolescent, albeit an intelligent one, on sizeable portion of the songs. However, his arrangements show off his impeccable taste. The softer songs like Fall on Tears and All God’s Children successfully sidestep schmaltz, because he recognises that pathos comes from precision, restraint and a hint of mystery. It Hurts When I Laugh, about suicide (“Annies got to sleep”) ends with the coda “Donna says hi/ Jackie says hi/ Johnny says hi/ hello, hello hello”) that leaves one wondering whether these are the friends she is departing from, or meeting on the other side. Its clear too that while this album will appeal to Furs fans, its not a mere echo of the past, or a watery reflection of old hits, but something that is determined to be its own beast. Not one song is lacking a chorus or a hook, not one song buries itself into a repetitive melody , and every track could serve as a single. Having being inspired by the punk movement as a youth, Butler is happy to dust off his old snarl and throw it into the audience, growling with savage intent on tracks like Little Fist about a rock star whose last guitar chord has snapped (“I'm full of pills but i don't feel good yet”) and Sweet Thing, which appears to be directed the spoilt teenage brats who mooch off their rich parents without any sense of gratitude (“you car couldn’t love you more”). However, after proving he can deliver, even improve, on the goods he delivered in his younger days, it is on the closing track, November 5, that Butler shows his age, and newfound maturity. Over an arrangement that is based on jazz guitar, with Chili Peppers-style funk rave-up briefly blurting in, he sings of an approaching winter, and leaves one wondering, strange flower that he is, that he might well truly blossom in his greyer days.